US Physical Game Sales Has Been Cut in Half Since 2021 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 25 January 2025 / 3,711 Views
Circana Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst Mat Piscatella has revealed the number of physical games sold in the US have plummeted.
Physical game sales have dropped by more than half since 2001 and are now over 85 percent lower than the peak in 2008.
"The rate of decline in US physical video game software spending accelerated in 2024," said Piscatella.
"Spending on physical video game software in the US has been cut in more than half since 2021 and is now more than 85% below its 2008 peak. We'll see if Switch 2 can help slow/reverse this trend in 2025."
The overall video game market in the US has remained relatively stable since 2020 with a peak of $60.4 billion in 2021 and a low of $56.6 billion in 2022.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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I'm still purchasing physical whenever possible.
same here
I still think part of the decline is that many games aren’t even offered a physical version. Long live physical. 👍
That and declining importance. Go look at the games released in 1994 and compare to games released in 2024. In 1994, you had FFVI, Donkey Kong Country, SF2 Trubo, MK2, Contra Hard Corps, Super Metroid, Earthbound, Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles, Streets of Rage 3, Castlevania Bloodlines....
The industry use to release masterpieces in hordes, every single year. Now, you're lucky to see even one game like that a year. When you have so many mediocre games, why even care? Might as well just plop down a low monthly fee and stream/download and delete mindlessly.
You are right (I have myself "bought" [it is in fact merely a rental] digital games because the physical version was first coming months and months later and I wanted to play the game right away), but I think this part of the decline is tiny, for the vast majority of people it is just convenience that is king, and digital is the more convenient option.
And yet the retro business continues to grow exponentially. Coincidence?
I'm sure the Switch is keeping it afloat.
I only buy physical for consoles.
I would actually still buy physical for PC if it actually existed, but Steam and GOG are great platforms that make it easy.
See? This is the main reason PC is next to mobile the only plattform i reject! Its only one reason of many but not being able to buy physical games kills a plattform for me. PSPGo died because of that. Unfortunally it looks like next gen will be digital only (outside of Nintendo). Sad but true...
Even if they don't release games on Physical next-gen, I would still buy a console if it came with a Blu-Ray drive and had backwards compatibility.
I just won't be buying games.
If games don't release physical they won't include a disc drive. Otherwise it woud be a waste of recourses. I would not add an engine to a bike if i do not want to use it.
It depends on what they prioritize.
Remember, they won't have to just provide backwards compatibility to the old and outdated Xbox Series and Playstion 5 consoles by that point with their own waning physical libraries... But also the Xbox One and Playstation 4 which were disc-heavy.
Thats true but don't forget: Since the PS3/Xbox360 (for Nintendo WiiU/3DS days) you can get every game digital as well. Especially MS arr not tired showimg us again and again what they think of physical. Their first parties only release digital. (Avowed is confirmed to do so). I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same with South Of Midnight. If the next Halo/ Gears does not release on Disc I won't be buying it and i won't be the only one! And thats my decision as a costumer. Yes i also like Nintendo, but if Mario Kart/ Metroid Prime 4 was only released digital i would NOT BUY IT!! Also Sony does not hasitate expanding in that direction even more. Like it was said, Journy (GOTY) was released only digital. That was the reason i rejected it. And thats my right as a costumer! Nobody can blame me for that!!
I won't buy a game unless it's Physical. Except on PC.... Because Steam actually lowered priced.
Well yeah. When one of the major physical retailers (Xbox) stops printing physical titles even for first party games and introduces a subscription model, that’ll happen.
I still buy physical over digital.
I'd hazard a guess that there is also a trend of digital-only releases gradually going up. Doubtful that it is 1:1, but it is harder to sell physical copies when less are available. This statistic only tells half the story.
A very sad state
I don't really see NS2 reversing this trend. If anything, maybe the 2025 & 2026 numbers will hold steady relative to the 2024 numbers (Nintendo fans might have a slightly higher preference for phsyical over digital than Sony & MS fans), but I can only see it continuing to decrease. Even when NS1 came out, the numbers continued to decline and same as when PS5 & XSX released (of course, you could blame covid restrictions on the latter two, but still).
I just feel like digital is becoming the way of the future. While I can always see there being physical games on the market, I just see digital being the main way people buy games going forward. For me, it's convenient because then I don't have boxes of games taking up space and it's also easier to switch between games. It got annoying to switch constantly between games like MK 8 DX, SSBU, ACNH, etc. when I played them more often earlier in the decade. It's just very convenient to have access to everything as soon as I power the system on.
For retailers, they can designate less space for physical games and more for other things by leaning more on digital. Also saves the manufacturers on shipping and delivery costs, and the worry of shipping delays. The big problem would be any outages in the internet, but I feel like there's always a way to find something that's "lost" or "deleted" on the internet anyways. Feels like the pros of going digital outweigh the cons honestly.
the weirdest thing abt this data for me is how much it contrasts Nintendo’s own data. (Digital v Physical has wavered around a 50:50 split the entire gen. No upward nor downward trends.) Being that Nintendo has no digital only system, it prolly is safe to assume Nintendo consumers lean more toward physical than PS/XB/PC. I’d imagine one system isn’t capable of single-handedly reversing a decades-long trend, tho i do see 2025 likely seeing an increase over 2024 due to the unprecedented number of big-selling (in many cases: console exclusive) titles coming this year (GTAVI, Monster Hunter Wilds, MarioKart 9, likely new 3D Mario, Pokémon Legends Z-A, …not to mention NSW2) compared to a year which had virtually none.
No digital system and also their systems only come with a 32 or 64gb therefore digital game ratio on Switch is low compared to other consoles
Thats the smallet problem. You can extend with (Express) SD cards. SD is -2TB Express - 128 TB.
Not everyone is gonna buy SD especially the casual. I'd think half switch owners don't have SD card for their switch
A 1 TB SD Card is 89€ or less. Everyone can buy it, its easy to use, PS/Xbox Pplayers buy expensive SSDs, i don't see why Nintendo players aged 25- 34 average couldn't. Don't tell me no one needs more than 32 (64 GB). 1,3 billion+ games sold and counting (PS2 1,55 billion) don't come from nowhere...
I can see the Switch 3 bein the last system with physical gamesmedia... sad but true. I would never buy digital only but unfortumally its the future. Switch 4, PS6, Xbox idon'tknowwhat could be digital at this point. This statistic shows no other possibility....
I would think that a PS6 will still have physical media, especially if a Switch 3 still does. A Switch 3 would almost certainly be released after a PS6.
Seeing these trends i highly doubt PS6 will have physical games. The next Xbox 100% not, i mean if ~75% of all games are sold digital on PS (Digital only adding a lot to it is an excuse i do not take here anymore!) we know where the journey goes...
I will continue to buy physical. Digital is not ownership. It's renting and I refuse to spend my money on renting.
The biggest game of the year 2023 (or GotY) came out to only digital, on all platforms. It's physical release wasn't until 2024. Sometimes we can't control it.
Sad but expected considering all the limitations so many publishers put on physical games.
Nintendo seems to release complete physical releases ready to play.
Nintendo hasn’t been consistent on that.
Witcher 3 was originally completely playable with no updates on a 32gb cart, which included the expansions. Subsequent updates to enable cross-saves take up a few gigs of storage.
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